Electronic books

One of my tasks in my work practice is to try and find ways to compile an interactive ebook for a tablet pc. I did some research of the subject and found it quite interesting and very new. This is again one of the things that will change fast and I'm sure the things in one year will look completely different. Still, I compiled a short pdf from what I found. I have to mention, that it was rather difficult to find clear information about this particular subject, so there might be some misunderstandings on the way. I also would have liked to include more programmes, but finding about their features without buying them proved to be somewhat impossible... Anyway, maybe this helps someone who is new to the subject!

Interactive ebook developing programmes for tablets: pros and cons

Timelapse photography animation

Some time ago I asked my former NZ colleague Fraser if I can download some of his timelapse videos and edit a small piece from them. Last weekend I was so far, and crafted this thing out of the photography. Fraser is awesome with the photography, if you ever go to visit New Zealand and would like to learn and take astrophotos, contact him! His website is in www.frasergunn.co.nz.

I hope you enjoy the video! :) Just view it in full screen, please. The small box doesn't really give justice to it...

Kometenjäger

Jetzt muss ich dann auch schon mal auf Deutsch schreiben, weil dieser Eintrag geht über ein deutschsprachiges Buch, nämlich "Die Kometenjäger" von Marc Deckert. Es hat in meinen Augen in der Bibliothek aufgefallen, und natürlich musste ich es sofort zugreifen... Bin aber auch glücklich, dass ich es gemacht habe: das ist wirklich eine tolle Geschichte - über Amateurastronomen!

Ich habe oft ein wenig gehofft, dass ich konnte irgendwann mal alles was ich über Astronomie weiß wieder vergessen. Naja, wäre natürlich auch sehr peinlich. Trotzdem wäre es schön, wenn ich konnte das alles irgendwie neu erfahren. Das habe ich mit diesem Buch gemacht. Der Weg, den hier beschreibt ist, habe ich auch schon erlebt. Wie es fühlt, zum ersten Mal M57 durch das Teleskop zu sehen... Oder in der Dunkelheit mit den fremden Leuten zu sprechen... Und die böse Lichte kaputtmachen... (Das habe ich aber nicht ernst gemacht.) ;)

Es wäre schön, wenn dieses Buch auch z.B. auf Englisch übersetzt würde. Ich finde es eigentlich sehr exakt darüber was kommt mit der Amateurastronomie. Nicht nur deswegen, dass die Daten richtig sind, sonst auch weil das richtiges Gefühl immer dabei bleibt. Ich weiß schon selbst, wie weit man kann seine Träume jagen. Da ist doch nur der Himmel die Grenze.

Sandmännchen

I don't normally post pictures of me, since I find it a bit boring, but this one is too good to miss. My friend visited me yesterday, and I asked her to take a pic I've been wanting to do since I visited Erfurt the first time. It turned out better than I thought. Definitely in top 10 of all the pics ever taken of me! :'D

Statistics

I often love to browse through the statistics of my home page. I really don't know why, maybe it just teaches me the way Internet works. Or then I'm just nerdy enough to get kicks from numbers. (That would be odd, though, my relationship with mathematics is still somewhat hostile.)

Anyway, the thing I'm really interested to follow is the frequency people download my fanart about Eisbrecher. It often surprises me to see, how popular some of the things have become. :) See yourself:

Eisbrecher stage: After Tektonten Papercraft added a link to the stage (or "paper theater") I've got frequent hits all around the world. If even one fifth of the downloaders would have actually built the thing, the band would be playing in quite a few households!
Total downloads after 2010: 544

Alexx paper doll and Noel paper doll: Good old paper dolls seem to be keeping their flair. I guess I could spare some time someday to draw some more clothes to them, on the stage specially Alexx seems to use some new stuff, too...
Total downloads after 2010: Alexx 239, Noel 137

Alexx paper doll book (English) and Alexx paper doll book (German): After the Alexx paper doll there were the pictures... This I consider pretty cool, too, since such fanart is already extremely specific and not all fans have similar humour.
Total downloads after 2010: English 79, German 101

Eisbrecher board game (English) and Eisbrecher board game (German): Like Alexx himself commented on the boardgame pic in Facebook: "das ist ja wohl mal der eiskalte hammer....." I dunno if he ever played it, but it does work. (I've lost the game already several times. Mur.) It is still frequently downloaded and I'm happy that both versions are equally popular!
Total downloads after 2010: English 230, German 230 (No, it's not a mistake, they really are equally popular!)

Eisbrecher font: This one is a bit newer than the others. It's not as popular as e.g. the stage, but I guess people do use it to different things, too. I hope they'll do some neat stuff with it! :D
Total downloads after 2011: 112


The original paper dolls - with signatures. It finally paid off to drag them with me to so many EB concerts... ;)

Still, the most surprised I am about the thing which doesn't have anything to do with Eisbrecher. It's the interactive Flash animation I coded for our animation course. I was very stressed at the time and didn't even think I'd be able to pull it off, but in the end I managed to do something: Constellation survival kit: the Plough. First it was just happily residing on my pages, until Googlebots started to pick it up more and more frequently. Nowadays, if you google "the Plough constellation" with any Google it turns up on the first page... Talking about the power of Google! :)
Total downloads after 2010: 911